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'Jersey Shore' Recap: Is the Situation Down for the Count?

Plus: The boys 'pretend' to be TV guidos who try too hard

It is not with a bang but with a whimper that we return to Firenze, the more specific locale being the Situation's sick bed. Remember? Because he "hurt his neck" while voluntarily smashing his head into a wall? The Sitch can barely do anything due to this "actual medical injury" that "actually exists." After rolling around on his back like a sweaty turtle crying for a while, the Situation informs Ronnie that he's thinking about heading back to the U.S. May the Academy recognize Ron for the Oscar-worthy performance necessary to pretend he gave two indoor pigeon doots about the man who just days (day?) before he was preparing to pummel. Ron invites him to the gym just to get out of the house. If not for himself, then for us: the Situation needs to get out of that house. Someone needs to get out of that house and actually walk around Italy. Do these guys know about the Ponte Vecchio yet?

Encouraged by Ron's words, the music swells as the Situation defiantly whips off his no-doubt-fragrant neck brace in triumph…only have his head detach from his shoulders and roll away under the smoking couch. The neck brace was holding his head on the entire time! No, I wish. Instead the Situation's "legitimate medical problem" seems to have disappeared, and he is ready once again to…continue to lay around the house.

Meanwhile, the girls are onto his B.S. JWoww won't back down from her shocking accusation that perhaps the Situation was not as grievously injured as he claimed. Either way, Snooki guarantees, "He's not going to talk shit for two weeks. At lease one week." The ladies take a leisurely 12-hour trip to the laundromat. On the way there, some random priest loudly and publically suggests Snooki cover up her bazooms if she…what, walked within 50 feet of his church? Was all the water in the baptismal font going to turn into tequila if Snooki's voluptuousness got too close, so he had to shoot a warning across a crowded city street? My heart swelled as Snooki called him an asshole and flounced on. "God loves my tits. God made my tits" she rages to the other ladies. "God didn't make mine," JWoww snorts. And this is why their spin-off is going to be all of the magic with none of the roid rage.

Back at home, shit gets meta as Pauly D introduces us his alter ego Johnny D, slipping into his own shades and a faux hawk to channel, and I quote, "one of those guidos on TV that tries to hard." One of them, you say! With their sweet dance moves and accidental eye gouging, Pauly and Vinny's uber-guidos seem a lot more fun than the standard issue ones we've apparently been watching. When is their show on? Whatever schadenfreude there is to be had in watching Pauly and Vinny jokingly conjure up a bizarro GTL ("Fist Pumps, Pushups, Chapstick," they squeal in delight) is quickly deflated by the realization that they are all actually in on the joke. "That's not a costume," Deena points out as Pauly slips into an Italia track suit. "Those are your regular clothes." Laughs Vinny, "Who knows more about guido douche bags than us?" We guess maybe…us?

As you might have guessed (and the stars ordained) Ronnie and Sammi decide, once again, to talk to it out. The rest of the gang wait in expectant silence in the living room as they loudly hash out every grievance against each other, tracing through their labyrinthine history of drunken fights and semi-infidelity. Eventually Vinny is dispatched to gently yet firmly insist they cut it out. "We just want you to have fun in Italy," he quietly, rationally explains to them. However, I'll go a step further and add that we all just want them to have fun in Italy.

It's moments like this, as well as the Situation's whimper-a-thon, when I start to wonder about the cast's perception of the viewing audience. Do they understand that we do not want to see their drama repeated ad nausem, forever and ever amen, or are they so insulated from us that they simply lack that level of understanding? If Ronnie and Sam knew how godawful boring their constant fighting was, would they even attempt to change it? And another thing: why do they even have a marionette and a Jacuzzi in that house if no one is going to use it? What Would Pierre Do?

However, with Ronnie and Sammi currently talking things out in a normal tone of voice, it's up to Team Meatball to cause enough ruckus to keep things interesting. After things get rowdy at Club 21 (watching JWoww scream, "Fall back" at a random crowd member fills me with a thrilling terror), a stranger dumps a drink into Snooki's absorbant poof. Both Shnooks and Deena fly into the crowd thirsty for blood, like two sexy Tasmanian devils. Tiny fists fly, weaves are grabbed and before you know it Deena and Snooki are accidentally beating up…each other. Vinny pulls them apart and everyone has a good laugh. I know I did anyway.

In an interesting turn of events (right?), everyone in the house hates Snooki's boyfriend Jionni. I know its probably editing and so forth, but some of Jionni's comments seem downright cruel. Does that man understand how many people would kill to get the kind of butt-focused attention Snooki lavishes on him over the phone? That's what she keeps saying right? At one point I swear Snooki indicates that she wants to suck his butt. Suck his butt! Jionni is apparently mortified by such affection, which is of course insane seeing as how he is dating Snooki.

As Shnooks has yet another drunken argument with her long-distance lover, she waits, one boob out, for him to unleash his latest tirade. Aren't we in some way all sitting and waiting with one boob out, wearing our vulnerability so defiantly it becomes our hot-pink armor? Ronnie, projecting his own failures onto the situation, takes the phone only to have Jionni be rude to him! But why wouldn't someone want Ronnie's dating advice? In the morning, however, Snooki is fine with Jionni's anger and over her roommates' meddling. "I'm not addicted to heroin. I'm addicted to my boyfriend's penis," she says, rolling her eyes. Despite Snooki's reassurances that her relationship is fine, the ball is set in motion for a Cast vs. Jionni showdown when he comes to visit soon. "I'm not going to pretend that everything is cheese and daisies," JWoww warns her. At least, I think that's what she says. I pray that's what she says, and that she means it.